


A Multitude of Pupeteers

by Kasan_Soulblade



Category: X-Men
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, Romance, other tags pending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-11-21 02:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasan_Soulblade/pseuds/Kasan_Soulblade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were hints of things that shouldn't be, couldn't be, tantalizing sensations, like taste to the air and flight just out of reach. Still she indulged his oddities, his eccentricies, even when a world wouldn't.</p><p>There life was a modern "Beauty and the Beast", with a spalsh of "Hyde" to the side.</p><p>Fact; split personality could not be forced. Madness could not be back tracked to logic. He'd picked the name Sauron as a logical decision, one of whim, but born of reasoning from an experience that was utterly lucid. The following choice was pure fancy, but it had been from a liniar process.</p><p>But who was Sauron?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An intro before the intro... how cliche,
> 
> To my readers
> 
> An AU effort, I was a fan of the old x-men animated show (the one aired in the ninties) and wanted to give it tribute, also I felt Sauron wasn't really used to his fullest in the series or the comics... So I thought I'd try to remedy it. Enjoy my efforts and know that besides my foggy memory and wiki I've few resources for accurate research. I'll try not to butcher things with the mainstay canon characters and would appreciate warnings from readers if I cross too many lines. Thanks in advance.
> 
> Kasan

A multitude of Pupeteers

Socks and all

The last day started cloudy.  The sun lost in a misty haze, winds flicked tree tips with fickle fingers.

 _His_ fingers were twined , chin atop lump, his eyes were for the sky.  Silver lining to the storm, he watched the quicksilver spark blaze across the storms belly with a smirk.  She seemed so fragile, even in flight, especially against a show of such power.  Brown eyes flashed to red as he thought he recalled flight, flight and feast.  So like the lightening she threw, was her power.  Throbbing, scalding, it had (possibly) snapped about his fingers.  Her life flowing into him until it warmed the aching hollow places inside.

She’d fallen crumpled, wings of wind clipped, it hadn’t taken much to reclaim his… the other’s… prize.  A half stoop and dive and…

Pain flared about his toes.

Hissing softly at the episode he closed hot eyes.  Counting to thirty, in two languages, such sterile thoughts stilled the appetite that was his… yet not.  Only when the flash of pressure behind his skull died and the alien thoughts ceased did he dare to open his eyes.

Brown again, surely.  His eyes were brown… weren’t they?

A glimpse at the window with its sketchy reflective properties reassured him he was right.  Save he wasn’t.  Reassured or right.  They’d been… and he wasn’t… and that was just how it was.

And he had other things to think about.

Like warm a bed, a warmer meal, and his wife.

So he left storms to their play, without comment, because he knew that the clouds would disperse at flights end, and when they did he was sure it would be a beautiful day.

XXX

Tanya Lykos was a contradiction.  Shy, sincere, sardonic, svelte, sweet, scattered yet endearingly studious… and harried.  Granted she was an hour late, and with the packing undone (they’d found other ways to spend the night, thank you) she was likely to be more.  Still, he watched her increasingly frantic efforts with an indulgent smile, propped on one arm, his own lanky frame blurred by blankets and pillows and a mattress (maybe) underneath it all.  The visual overlap of what was what was made all the more complete when one considered that the pillows matched the blankets, which matched the sheets, which matched the carpet, and the whole of the uniformly fluffy mass was a deep forest green that was further confused by the fact the bed was kept low.

And in all truth, her husband wasn’t inclined to lift a cl- finger to help.

Frowning at the oddness of his thoughts he wormed out an arm, said arm ended in a hand that was clasped around a book.  A few idle flips later and he was back to reading… about hobbits.

After all it was best to start these things from the beginning.

Beyond his world of the cerebral amusement clothes thumped as they were thrown about.  Her’s and his.  It was a good thing neither one of them held to sentimental materialism as one coat (his, balled and wrinkled) skidded over the long dresser with enough force to knock over the folders piled atop it.  The rush of papers made him look up, the glance at the folders side (red) assured him it wasn’t his (guess who won the coin toss on what to color the bed their favorite color that month?) so he  contributed to the growing madness by turning a page.

“Gah, what’s the weather like out there anyway?”

“Unstable.”  Another page turn. “Considering they don’t have a weather witch _and_ considering it is the tail end of November I’d pack for the cold.”

“You _always_ pack for the cold.”

“Touche.”

Another rustle, papers, the tone of the sound told him it wasn’t notebook or stapled printer pages, so he looked up to find her… reading the paper.  A squint confirmed the newspaper to be two weeks old.

“Tanya…”

“Hmmm?”

“Weather report is on the front page, not in the opinion section at the back.”

“Oh, I read that.”  She mumbled, distraction incarnate.

Remembering that there was an article on genetics that he’d been meaning to share with her (hence why the paper was saved when all its kin had been scrapped) he almost didn’t say anything.  She was clearly enjoying her read and…  And she’d kill him for letting her get side tracked again.

“And what was the weather outside like, two weeks ago?”

“Hmm?”

“Tanya!”

“What?”

“The paper is two _weeks_ old.”

Silence, more reading.  Well he knew how to counter that.  Lifting his book he perused his read as she flipped through the pages to find the other half of the article.  Granted half was a misdemeanor as the remnant took up two whole pages in the center flaps.  Well he might get a chapter in, perhaps two if he hurried along. When the pages stopped rustling and was hurriedly dropped did he look up with a smirk.  To her guilt, expression and the faint flush of her cheeks served as exhibit one and two, he laughed.

Still laughing, he offered around chuckles. “You could stay, read a bit with me, it’s not like we have work.”

Never mind the disorder she was adding to the salvageable situation of the spilled folders, up came the coat, and a toss sent it his way.  He grunted, brought low by a mess of long sleeves and let himself fall back onto the fluff.

It wasn’t like he was going anywhere today.

“Seriously Tan’”  He drawled her name, gaze lingering on the predominant red crescent where he’d left a mark during his earlier anti-packing efforts. She hitched up her short sleeve shirt with a little glare at his scrutiny. Unrepentant towards her wordless scolding he continued.  “You don’t like them, they don’t like you, and they want us divorced because I sometimes have glow in the dark eyes.  Why visit?”

“They’re family Karl and I know you don’t have…  I mean... You don’t have the traditional family, but it’s expected.”

That certainly true, though considering her overwhelming gentleness her words had a bit of a bite to them.

Considering… everything though… it might have been a justified rebuke.  Running a finger over his stubble he made a note for himself to crawl out of the covers eventually and shave before she got back. Because the scraping sound was really irritating and he wasn’t Strider.  DVD or book version. It was only after that idle thought that he was visited by something that might have been guilt.

He _should_ feel bad, no mom, or dad, or anything really.  Just him and Tanya for as far back as he could remember.

But a baser, deeper, deepest part liked them alone.  And that part hissed for him to sabotage, to push her away from them, more towards him. It was that part that opened his mouth, spilling out truths that should have been awful but weren’t.

“You said you won’t visit during Christmas, they ruin it.”  At the pain in her blue eyes and the subtle twisting of her round face said “too far” even to his baser half he bit his lip, swallowed.  “Sorry, it’s just… I’ll… make breakfast or something...”

Still, tribulations of his error aside he closed his book with care.  Then, recalling propriety like how a man hears a snippet of a song in the back of his head, disjointed, and inappropriately, he wound the blankets around his frame a little late.

Another toss, another thump (or five), and plopped at his feet are his pants (holey, and not in the celestial sense), underthings, socks... The last was unmatching, one frilly and pink the other grey and clearly _not_ clean. Obviously a punishment, but a look up to her wickedly upturned lips and just-so tip of her head tells him he’s been forgiven.

But only if he puts on the socks.

Strings upon strings, with a multitude of puppeteers for each thread, hers and only hers, he doesn’t mind.  And it’s with something like love (is, it is, that baser part avows, in a crackling croak), that coagulation of lust, affection, tolerance, and closeness that he permits her her little games.

As she, wending about him, picking up his choice bit of fantasy, spine worn and pages almost crumbling, is influenced to permit him in her life. No linguist, he wonders if those who made the word wife and life sound so similar were onto something.

“So…” Cue rustling sheets as he holds into modesty and retrieves clothes, it’s a farce but she’s smiling at it so it’s one he’ll indulge. “What would you like?”

“Breakfast, preferably not screaming, bloody, or begging.”

“I’m not that bad a coo-“

But she’s gone, out of the bedroom, and the cheery meep of keypad tells him she’s making a call.

To whom he knows, she’s off to explain, console, and amend a broken promise with a rushed excuse.  Leaving her to it he fumbles on the peace offering, socks and all.


	2. Chapter 2

A Multitude

Chapter two

He was a man of many flaws.  He could perhaps tally virtue on one hand, but his flaws fast surpassed the digits of his fingers and in all honesty eclipsed his toes.

But she rarely kept count.  Simple smiled and sighed when he brought it up, she teased each flaw as if it were a mere personality twitch, an eccentricity, and he’d learned by long association, to smile and laugh when she did.

But he worried, and she noticed, and twitted him about frown lines, easing them with warm fingers. Never mind they both knew that scientifically it wouldn’t help.  That the push of muscles and the pull of gravity upon skin, and steady drag of time were forces beyond the occasional corrective poke.  Still he indulged her, allowed her fingers to trace the line between his eyes and those few about his mouth.

In the door way, between here and there, their quarters, and the crush that was outside, they kissed.  He eased and tipped the baggage, allowed a controlled descent away from her feet, then their lips were meeting and there was no more time for little considerations after that.  When they broke apart he was smiling.

And she was too.

“There’s always a little good in everything.”

“You’re almost as bad as _he_ is.”

Karl never spoke of the man, avoided him as much as possible.  Animosity without reason, without cause, but very very real.

Still, he loved her more than he hated _him_ , so he was able to hold his smile. The peck on her lips, as much promise as indulgence as that, helped his smile along.

“Things… they’ll be fine.”

His smile lingered, as did his gaze, tracing the angles and lines of her face with an ocular tenderness that would match one of her touches.  The reasons were varied as to why he held to a façade of cheer, part was for her nearness, part was a motion to indulge her hope, perhaps give it a little strength.

But part of it was due to the hesitance in that last.

That subtle breaking.

“It’ll be fine.”

Thus he broke truth, piling broken amongst breaking, and though destruction was its root, the whole of it held.  Propped up her smile and even aided his as he loosed her, opened the door, and snapped up her belongings.

“Chivalry, Mr. Lycos?”

His smile acquired something lean, something feral as his thoughts went to primal routes. Providing, protecting, even services, such small virtues he could offer, but it warmed him to do so.  So she indulged him, shelving banter about setting back the feminist movement though she was surly thinking it if the twitch of her lips was anything to go by.

He didn’t call her out on it.

And she, ever obsessed with niceties, ignored the flush at the base of his eyes.

“Only for you.”

And any repartee and part of them was swallowed first step out.  It was mad and maddening, the rush, the flurry of students coming and going, the subtle currents on high indicated that _someone_ was flying and flying invisible despite it being against the rules.

“Mr. K-“  He snapped, or rather would have, hadn’t a telepath with a supernatural perchance for clumsiness decided to exercise both powers at once.  They went down in a tangle of limbs and when he got the poor slip of a boy off, the brat was stammering about “didn’t want to see that, oh god…”

The child flinched further when Tanya helped him up, cringed against the offered support and nearly fell as a result.

Ignoring the little cluster of starrers and would be helpers Karl hauled himself to his feet and slung straps and gripped handles.  By the time he was up the boy looked a bit shell shocked, enough so that he was about ready to send one of the gawkers to find one of the teachers.  Grey would be best, but the effort wasn’t necessary if the shock of red coming their way was…  Yes.  The crowd parted and he tipped his head.  Tanya turned, made the offering of the boy and they were gone.

Well going, but not before the child could babble something like shaky gratitude.

He nodded, waved a long nailed hand in acknowledgement, stilling Tanya’s worries and concerns with a rather rude “We’re running late”.  Excusable, as the press of people, now moving again, assured the drama was done, made his skin prickle. She followed at his words, feeling something like shame at the roundabout call to a duty forgotten, and as she kept pace behind him he wondered what he could do to undo that.  Undo that pain all accidental.

He slowed and a half step to the side and they were evenly paced.  Making some of the children, so many on their way out, leaving for home, embroiled in their pedestrian holiday plans, grumble.  But they parted for their elders with minimal jostling, so he kept the urge to snap at the lot of them shelved.

Another door, one turn to the left and they were headed to the garage, not the packed till overflowing main foyer, where all the children were either waiting for rides, or parents, or guardians, or friends families to acquire them. They’d be gone soon, but precious few drove, and fewer had cars, so the garage where the teachers kept their vehicles was empty.

It was there, in that low lit stillness, segregated from day and people that his skin ceased it’s tingling, and he felt some of his good humor returning.

They trekked amongst a mechanical crush.  Past the “convertible” still scarred by a certain clawed maniacs temper tantrum, to the left of the blue car, he sighed at the gaudy grey thing she’d insisted on.

The color was always a disappointment, its history colorful even if it’s hue dull. The dent where he’d met a tree never quite smoothed out, the bark left scrawled silver slashes from door to trunk.

It’d been a bad day topped by a tight turn and a crisis compiled with a storm.

“Love,” She was fumbling in her pockets, the keys ring a ling telling she was close but the effort warned she was not done.  Still she stilled, the tenderness was all those words he couldn’t say, the apologies and self-recriminations and…

And she met his eyes, bellied with a nearly bloody luminance, and dredged up a shaky smile.

“It’s alright, you were right, it’s just…”

“You care too much.”  He noted, voice dissolving into a soft rasp.

“It balances things out.”  She countered.  A flick of silver about her fingers, she fiddled with the lock, a click and the door was opened.

To that awful thing, that could have been criticism, but was worse for being truth, he sighed.  Threw in his burden and shook his head.  They’d argue her kindness to his practicality often enough.  So much so there was no heat to the exchange at all.  It was merely a cycling of facts now.

Still… it stung at times, and under the force of a blow never meant to hurt, he fumbled towards something like kindness.

“If… Give my regards to your mother, and call when you get there, regardless of how it goes.”

She looked back; face softening at the croak to his voice.

“Only if you promise to take something for the throat.”

“Tea, honey,” he coughed, hating when his voice pulled a mutiny.  “I will, I promise.”

“Then I promise.”

Something for something, _that_ he understood.  He smiled for that, and closed the door on her things.  A click and it was locked and she was easing in.  She stretched, he strained, nearly folding his frame in half, to share a final kiss.

“Call.”  He ordered roughly.

“Drink.”

“That’s an odd one.”  He drawled, stepping back, the door closed, the window still down.  

“Like for like, and I do like, because of everything.”

And then she was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found part of this chapter in the wrong folder and decided to finish it. I've not settled to make this my focus project but I did want to touch up on this tale again before I lost the idea. So expect some sporadic updates here and there.  
> KS

A multitude

 

Chapter 3

 

She hated when he cooked.

Besides cracks about his meals begging, being bloody… Well the exaggeration fell on the begging part, but the bloody unfortunately was quite true.  He liked his meat on the rare side; it hadn’t been a problem… but when cooking for two… Well it was one of his oddities that she couldn’t adjust too.

And, perhaps there had been a few incidents of food poisoning, or borderline food poisoning, but that was less the flaws of his preparation method and more the nature of the meat and all its additives, and time, and…

Regardless, it wasn’t his fault.  But no one believed him. So those few times he was social enough to be invited to potlucks and the like he made a point of not cooking.  Or rather, Tanya made a point of not letting him in the kitchen.

He could do a fine ramen though, mixing vegetables and precooked meats and cooking the noodles tender but not soggy, he had a slew of sauces to the point that no one would figure that it all came from a package of salt and fried carbohydrates.  Those meals he got praise for, or rather had _gotten_ praise until the wrappers had been found.

Sometimes, he mused as he set a skillet over the coil stove, loving an environmental conscientious, pro-organic, tree hugger, vegetarian-vegan-I don’t know what I am this week, did have its downsides.

To say meat was scarce was an understatement, still the freezer was uncontested due to the fact that freezing compromised freshness, so he pulled out a chub of meat and scrapped off the ice as he checked the date.  Slitting the plastic with his thumb nail he plopped the pound down and spread it out with his hands.  A nudge of his elbow got the tap going and a few minutes with the soap would deal with the blood.

The phone on the wall began to ring, so he hurried the cleaning along. If his hands were a mite wet when he went to answer it, well, she’d never know.

“Tanya, there already?”

He kept his tone carefully light, knowing already who’d call, after all no one else bothered.

“Yeah, just got in.”  Her voice was equally forced, and he frowned, normally the unpleasentries didn’t kick up until dinner time, and it was barely brushing up against lunch.

Case in point he went to better watch the stove, when the cord started straining he pulled a spatula out of his pocket and made an effort to nudge the raw meat patty.  The spit of static in his ear persuade him to stop trying and he focused on her words.  It was all very trite.

Drive had been fine, brother was home, father was, mother wasn’t.

That last was new.  Almost jarring.  Tanya’s mother had, last visit he’d been allowed, been a bit on the forgetful side.  They’d tentatively diagnosed Alzheimer’s, or rather _he_ had, but then what did a mutant know?  Education, specializations of the mind aside, he’d confided his concerns, confirming Tanya’s, and having been banished for the rest of the year… what could they do?

Nothing save wait, and perhaps waiting had been wrong.

“Are they… well… what home is she in?  We could visit.”

That visit he wouldn’t mind.  A peaceful get together (provided she remembered him, and he’d mind his eyes least she’d forgotten that) with her mother would be preferable to a week by himself.  Even if he had hated the woman he’d prefer to be with her, no matter the unpleasantness, would have been there now, with Tanya.  Their separation wasn’t something he liked.  Never mind the ban, if her father wasn’t inclined towards instability and hadn’t owned a collection of guns large enough to make the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups want to make Mr. Anderssen their figurehead…

Well, even if he had regenerative powers like Logan he wasn’t volunteering to be shot.

Nor was he willing to put Tanya at risk.

 _Which was why she should be here, with him, not there, with them_.

He kept that little thought behind his teeth as she carried on.

Clearly they’d gone to the doctors recently when the symptoms had been too much to ignore, and like the loving, protective little pack of bigots they were they’d nipped mother dearest into the nearest home.

Never mind she wasn’t even in the last stages yet, or that there were medicines, or therapy’s that could help.  Hell they lived with a psychic, the world’s greatest if gossip were to be believed.  The man damn well should be able to do something about the process of mental breakdown. Redirect the chemicals of her the mind via subliminal suggestions so the detrition occurred in non-vital or passive areas or something of the like.

If there was static, it was less the cord straining and more his stranglehold about the device.

“Karl?”

He was staring at the stove, was supposed to be watching it… but the reasons why meant less and less.  Really it was taking more effort than he carried to rally to bother to recall why.

Even the telltale smell of burning didn’t rouse him to caring.  Couldn’t.

“Karl, are you there?”

Her voice was breaking, little wonder. 

“Here…” 

His voice was likewise a ruin, ruined, he scrapped at burning eyes and raw skin.  One deep breath, another, he curled absently, cradling what he’d nearly crushed. Surly shattered, for the pieces were digging into a hand that now hurt. All the while his mind was frantically scrambling to piece feelings into coherence and found frantic fury instead.  The idea of being “at a loss for words” was never so real.

Or so heartbreaking, trite should not be allowed to break a heart.

Her sniffle, near sob, to that he closed his eyes.  Waiting….

“Karl… it’s... worse… much worse.  They won’t tell me where she is unless… they won’t even giver her her medicines unless…”

“Unless I’m out of the picture.”

“They want divorce papers, signed, legal, pushed through.  They want me here, not…”

His mouth opened, throat burning he rasped all unexpected.  “Come home.”

Hardly a non-sequitor that, less an order, more a futile effort to shore against the expected and utterly suicidal…

 “If I stay I might… _information_ I can…”

He could hear her grasping at that thought; he shook his head, eyes blazing.  “ _No_.  We’ll have one of the less morally obligated children do some hacking.  If they’d gone that far-“  the rest was painfully obvious, so he spared them both about what they could do.  What they might.  “Come home _now_ or I swear I’m coming.”

Near hysteria answered that.  “No, you can’t I…”  Interference, static reclaimed the line, wound frizzled claws until all the sound that was allowed was a hiss and beep as the line disconnected.  Whether that was from his hands finally rending the plastic, or something more sinister on the other side…

Whatever the cause, the sound was eclipsed by his own screech of outrage, and the clatter of phone bits striking, scarring, the walls.


End file.
